When writing a romance novel it is important to tap into the elements of love. In real life, a person has one type of expression for their love, but in a novel you need to include all five. If you eliminate one or two of these elements of love then some reader's can't feel the love come through, no matter how well written the story is. Have you ever heard someone complain because your characters jumped into bed too soon? All authors try hard to set this up well and make it realistic. So, what goes wrong? First, the reader needs to feel the emotions. You need to trigger their emotions. This is done by following the characters through the act of falling in love. The first step is the promise. The character has strong feelings, needs, that the other character seems capable of fulfilling. People falling in love start to set ourselves aside and make compromises for the other person. If we are too needy, and go too far, then we risk making a commitment to the wrong person. This is also true in a novel. Be careful if you are writing about a woman who jumps in bed with the man she's just met. Yes, this happens every day, but you are not writing about real life, you are writing a romance.
Authors accidentally trigger memories of all the reader's failed relationships by concentrating on the acts and not the method of falling in love. The next steps enables the couple to start dreaming about being loved. This is where they touch for the first time. This leads to the first kiss. The characters may think about what they want, and are pleasantly surprised when the other person gives them what they need. In this step the other person promises, unconsciously, to make up for the pain the other one has endured. If the heroine has been betrayed, the hero must be loyal to a fault. If the heroine has been abused, this new man must live by a strict code of honor. In a good romance novel the dreams slowly become reality.
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